This storefront was built in 1888, when St. Louisans were taking up bicycling, reading Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Theodore Roosevelt's Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, and paying 50 cents to watch the St. Louis Browns play on North Grand Avenue. Its estimated construction cost was $3,500, and its corner design included an entrance set off by a cast iron column, a slate-covered mansard roof, decorative brick work, and milled wood trim. In the early 20th century, the Co-Operative Union Meat Market operated here, followed by a saloon, and after Prohibition closed saloons in 1919, a Kroger Grocery and Baking Company store occupied the site.
